Ridiculous Parents Complain About ”˜Unfair’ Punishment For Teen Athlete Drinking Parties

Glenbard West parents plan to attend a district board meeting today to protest what they call the ”unfair application of the district’s athletic code” after their teens were suspended for summer drinking parties. What this basically means is that these parents are unfortunately fitting the stereotype of millennial parents who protect their special snowflakes at all costs, even when they have made serious mistakes.

According to The Daily Herald, parents are complaining after 30 teen athletes were disciplined by the school for attending drinking parties in the summer:

Tom Kane, a parent of a Glenbard West athlete who is not being disciplined, encouraged other parents to speak up.

“My son was not involved in this particular episode and so our family is not personally affected by the disciplinary action, but there are a number of aspects of this incident and how it was addressed that seem so unfair, overly harsh, inconsistent, and out-of-touch with reality,” he wrote in an email.

Kane said suspensions ranged from 20 percent of games to a full season for those disciplined after attending a birthday party hosted in late June by a Glenbard West student. There was alcohol at the party and no parents were present, he said.

The students who were suspended participate in a variety of sports, including volleyball, basketball, cheerleading, dance, football and soccer, Kane said. Many, he added, have appealed the suspensions, without success.

I have mixed feelings on the drinking issue. I don’t have teenagers yet, but I don’t agree with how alcohol was handled in my household growing up. I was told that alcohol was wrong, wrong, wrong, yet still I drank at school and at friends’ houses from the age of 13. So, clearly, this hard-core alcohol abstinence didn’t do me any favors.

I don’t have teenagers yet, but since my husband and I grew up in similar religious environments, we have already talked about how we plan to discuss drinking openly with our teens and even allow them to taste alcohol at times, safely and in our presence. I’m also not going to turn a blind eye and pretend that my kids won’t drink with their peers in high school, at parties like those discussed above. I would rather my kids call me when they are drinking than ever risk a DUI, which I unfortunately experienced at the age of 24.

All that is to say that I wouldn’t be too upset if my teenagers were at one of these drinking parties. But I would also hope to have talked with them beforehand about all of the possible consequences of underage drinking, including the dangers and suspension from school. Basically, if you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime.

These parents feel that punishments for the drinking parties were applied unfairly, claiming that students were made to ”rat out” other students at the party, who were then punished. The outraged parents also believe the punishment was too harsh for kids who were just ”hanging out” at the party and willingly left when asked by police.

These gullible parents are borderline hilarious. I’m sure that their kids claimed they weren’t drinking at the party and were just ”hanging out” with friends. Of course, these innocent teens don’t deserve punishment because they just happened to be at the scene of the crime but weren’t doing anything wrong. That’s the oldest trick in the book.

The school board is merely enforcing its athletic code that is in effect 24 hours a day, every day of the year, whether or not school is in session. Teenagers will be teenagers, and this may include drinking and making mistakes. These parents and their kids need to grow up and accept the consequences. The school board is in the right.

(Image: Brent Hofacker/Shutterstock)